Fire has swept through Dorset’s towns and villages, transformed heathland, destroyed historic houses and sometimes been deliberately used as a weapon or a tool. Its effects remain written across the county, in Georgian streets, roofless rooms, scorched stone and the stories passed between generations. What happened in the aftermath reveals just as much about Dorset. … Continue reading Dorset on Fire
Slightly overshadowed by the more famous Watling Street and Fosse Way, Ackling Dyke is Dorset’s most prominent Roman Road. Running for around 22 miles (35 km) from Old Sarum (Sorviodunum) to Badbury Rings, this spectacular Roman road survives in places as a substantial raised agger, still clearly visible in the landscape. But Ackling Dyke was … Continue reading Ackling Dyke
Across England from the 15th to the 18th century, fear of female power shaped a culture in which women were relentlessly pushed into the shadows, their knowledge and independence recast as danger. By the time King James published ‘Daemonologie’ in 1597, witchcraft panic had become a widespread phenomenon. The typical victim of an English witch … Continue reading Dorset Witches
Explore a landscape shaped by thousands of years of human activity, from Bronze Age burial mounds and great prehistoric cross-dykes to Romano-British fields and a lost medieval settlement. Skirt Dole’s Ash, Thomas Hardy’s inspiration for Flintcomb-Ash in Tess of the d’Urbervilles, before climbing the ancient ridges surrounding secluded Lyscombe Bottom and returning across the open … Continue reading Dole’s Ash
Follow the valley of the River Stour through the heart of the Blackmore Vale. Circle the edge of the meadows beneath Sturminster Newton before crossing the Victorian Colber Bridge. Climb out of the Stour valley before dropping into the valley of the River Divelish, its name deriving from its dark waters rather than anything devilish. … Continue reading Colber
Climb to the peak of one of the Isle of Purbeck’s hidden gems. Wander through woodland before emerging onto sandy heath and gorse, climbing over the earthworks that scar the hillside on the way. From the summit, enjoy panoramic views across the blue waters of Poole Harbour and the forests of northern Dorset, stretching as … Continue reading Creech Barrow
Wander along the great natural divide between Dorset and Wiltshire, with wide views over the Nadder valley from Shaftesbury to Win Green. Follow the ancient Ox Drove, once travelled by herders moving livestock from Salisbury across the earthworks of Cranborne Chase to the lowlands of the Blackmore Vale. Twist with the bendiest road in Britain … Continue reading Zig Zag Hill
Circle the ancient burial landscape of Parley Common. Explore its liminal edges, steeped in heathland folklore, where echoes of execution sites, smugglers, and river‑magic still haunt the air. From affluent estates to the roar of the airport boundary, discover a mythic landscape, filled with prehistoric barrows, and edged with an Iron Age hillfort. Distance: 4miles/6.5km … Continue reading West Parley
